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By John Wesley Hill 
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Abraham Lincoln: Man of God 


If Lincoln Were Here 








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(By permission of the Century Co.) 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


BY 
JOHN WESLEY HILL, LLD., Litrp. 


CHANCELLOR, LINCOLN MEMORIAL UNIVERSITY 
CUMBERLAND GAP, TENN. 


AUTHOR OF ‘‘LINCOLN—MAN OF GOD’? 


G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS 
NEW YORK AND LONDON 
Che Buickerborker Press 


Copyright, 1925 
by 
John Wesley Hill 





First printing, October, 1925 
Second printing, February, 1926 





Made in the United States of America 







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_THE COMMON PEOPLE OF AMERICA 


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INTRODUCTORY TRIBUTE 


N February 12, 1809, two 
men were born. ‘They 
have been dust for many 


years. Yet each played a large part 
in the great world war that recently 
reached its close. These men were 
Abraham Lincoln and Charles Dar- 
win. Darwin devoted his life to 
the study of material things. In 
that world in which he lived he 
found heredity and environment to 
be the controlling facts. Out of his 
study came the doctrine of the sur- 
vival of the fittest. The savants of 
Germany made that doctrine the 


Vv 


vi INTRODUCTORY TRIBUTE 


cornerstone of a new philosophy 
which they called Kultur. 

According to Kultur, the world 
belonged to the strong and to the 
strong alone. Might was right and 
the world was in the relentless 
grip of physical force. Justice, 
gentleness, righteousness, were words 
invented by the weak to protect 
themselves against the strong. To 
pity a foe was weakness, to spare 
him was a crime. Kultur was a 
denial of the moral law; was a blind 
faith in the power of the laws of life 
which Darwin had declared. The 
fatal defect in Kultur was that 
it assumed that Darwin’s theory 
covered the entire philosophy of 
life. This was not so. He was 
accounting only for the material 
universe. He never denied so far as 
I have discovered that there was a 


INTRODUCTORY TRIBUTE vii 


larger world—the moral and spirit- 
ual world. Kultur overlooked this 
and took its fatal plunge. 

Abraham Lincoln was born in a 
cabin in Kentucky. If heredity and 
environment had been all there was 
in human life we never should have 
heard his name. While Darwin 
delved in rocks to find vanished 
forms of life, Lincoln studied men. 
By them his sympathies were quick- 
ened; the moral depths of his being 
were stirred; the right and wrong of 
human conduct engaged his deepest 
thought. Just as the laws of phys- 
ical being unfolded under the eye of 
the great scientist, so the laws of 
the moral universe disclosed them- 
selves to the great man. Lincoln 
had never read The Origin of She- 
cies, but he knew that under the 
moral law an injury inflicted upon 


vil INTRODUCTORY TRIBUTE 


an inferior by a superior man reacts 
upon himself. He said: 


This is a world of compensation and 
he who would be no slave must consent to 
have no slave. And those who deny free- 
dom to others deserve it not for themselves, 
and under a just God cannot long retain it. 


Unconsciously Lincoln became the 
interpreter of the moral laws of 
society just as Darwin became the 
interpreter of the physical laws of 
life. Therefore Lincoln asserted that 
all men had the inalienable right to 
“life, liberty and the pursuit of 
happiness.”” Lincoln was as much 
at home amidst the play of moral and 
spiritual forces as was Darwin in 
the realm of mere matter. It was 
this moral grandeur to which Lin- 
coln attained that made him the 
wisest of all men. For, after all, 
wisdom is largely a product of char- 


INTRODUCTORY TRIBUTE ix 


acter. Men may be intellectually 
brilliant, indeed brilliant beyond 
compare, and yet be utterly lacking 
in wisdom. Where other men had 
views, Lincoln had _ convictions. 
Convictions come from the heart 
and not from the brain. And so 
whenever there arises a question of 
human liberty or of human rights, 
one may turn to Lincoln for an 
answer without inquiring as to the 
particular year in which he wrote. 
There is a perfect harmony running 
through all his utterances. 

It is not strange that as Kultur 
was partially founded upon the doc- 
trine of Darwin, so the Allies in the 
great war found their chief inspira- 
tion in the life of Abraham Lincoln. 
For this great contest was a war 
between the material forces of the 
world upon the one hand and the 


x INTRODUCTORY TRIBUTE 


spiritual forces upon the _ other. 
Where the Central Empire found 
comfort in The Origin of Species, the 
statesmen of England and France, 
and of Italy and the United States, 
read the Gettysburg speech and the 
Second Inaugural and thereby re- 
newed their faith and refreshed their 
courage. 

We have known ever since Lin- 
coln’s death that he was America’s 
most perfect product, but we did 
not learn how much he meant to all 
the world until the great war came 
and civilization was threatened on 
every front. Then it was that in 
France or England or wherever the 
torch of liberty still burned and 
men were fighting for righteousness 
with their backs to the wall—then 
it was that the whole world turned 
to the words of Lincoln. And so 


INTRODUCTORY TRIBUTE xi 


in our own country Lincoln loomed 
a mightier figure than ever before. 
During the most depressing period 
of the war, when our Allies were 
becoming war-weary, whenever a 
mission from foreign lands visited 
America either to stimulate our ac- 
tivities or to renew their own cour- 
age, that mission made a pilgrim- 
age to Lincoln’s tomb. I was in 
Springfield when the French mission 
headed by Marshal Joffre visited 
that city. I drove with the great 
French soldier who held the enemy 
at bay in the first Battle of the 
Marne, to the cemetery where lies 
Lincoln’s dust. As I looked at the 
old hero and saw his streaming eyes 
and his trembling hands as he laid 
his tribute of blossoms upon Lin- 
coln’s bier, I thought I could see 
that he in that sacred presence had 


xii INTRODUCTORY TRIBUTE 


resolved anew “They shall not 
pass.” 

Within the last few years we have 
had before our very eyes two at- 
tempts to replace a_ civilization 
founded upon righteousness, upon 
moral and spiritual concepts, with a 
purely materialistic and Godless 
structure. First, under the leader- 
ship of their philosophers Germany 
evolved the idea that the state 
could do no wrong. She had been 
marvelous in her achievements dur- 
ing the years which had preceded 
the war; she had shown an eff- 
ciency which challenged the admira- 
tion of the world; she had come to 
think that she had so far con- 
quered matter in all its forms that 
she could rest her future upon a 
material base alone. And we know 
the result. We saw that no matter 


INTRODUCTORY TRIBUTE xiii 


how well disciplined her legions, 
when those legions hurled themselves 
against less perfectly disciplined 
legions—moved and sustained, how- 
ever, by a deep moral purpose—we 
saw her splendid legions dashed to 
pieces. And again at almost the 
same time another effort was made 
to build a civilization upon material 
concepts alone. This time it was 
in Russia that the effort was made. 
There they had taken as a basis for 
their new philosophy of government 
the principles of Karl Marx, which 
sought to resolve all things into 
material terms. Churches were dis- 
mantled; the clergy were driven 
from the altar; and a civilization 
based upon purely material con- 
cepts was the thing attempted. The 
world knows the result. It now sees 
that it is just as impossible to rest a 


xiv INTRODUCTORY TRIBUTE 


civilization upon a material base as it 
is upon the might of the sword alone. 

There is this in common between 
the two attempts—the attempt of 
the German Militarists and the at- 
tempt of the Bolshevists—and that 
is that each sought to eliminate all 
spiritual forces and all moral qual- 
ities from their respective schemes. 
And therefore it never seemed to 
me strange that the Bolshevists, 
when they came into possession of 
Russia, should meet the ambassa- 
dors of Militarism at Brest-Litovsk 
upon equal terms and there frame a 
treaty of peace. Isn’t it strange that 
with these two colossal failures star- 
ing us in the face we should need 
to be reminded by Lincoln that “it 
is the duty of nations as well as of 
men to own their dependence upon 
the overruling power of God.” 


INTRODUCTORY TRIBUTE xv 


We are confronted with grave and 
perplexing problems. Civilization 
itself seems to some hanging in the 
balance. The world is drifting 
whither no man knows. How 
quickly all this would change if 
these words of Lincoln could only 
enter and hold the heart of the 
world in these troublous times. 

The cause of democracy is the 
cause of humanity. Democracy con- 
cerns itself with the welfare of 
the average man. Lincoln was its 
finest product. In life he was its 
noblest champion. In death he be- 
came its saint. His tomb is now 
its shrine. His country’s cause for 
which he lived and died has now 
become the cause of all the world. 
It is more than a half century since 
his countrymen, with reverent hands, 
bore him to his grave. And still his 


xvi INTRODUCTORY TRIBUTE 


pitiless logic for the right, his serene 
faith in God and man, are the sword 
and shield with which democracy, 
humanity and righteousness every- 
where oppose their foes. 


Ahoy 


Oregon, Ill. 
Sinnissippi Farm. 
November, 1925. 


PREFACE 


N times of crises in a nation’s life, 
when confronted with great per- 
plexities as to national policy, 

the people turn back the pages of 
history and seek guidance in the pre- 
cepts and examples of its heroes of 
the past. 

It was Washington, the statesman, 
the creator of the nation, whom we 
selected as our mentor in political 
exigencies of international scope. 
When, however, we seek for guid- 
ance in those great questions of 
“humanics” involving the relation 
between man and man, we turn and 
reread the life of Lincoln, the saviour 
of the nation created by Washington. 


XVil 


XViil PREFACE 


The world is now asking, What did 
Lincoln think? What would Lin- 
colndo? He was not a great student 
nor was he a man of extensive learn- 
ing, but he possessed in a signal 
degree the ability to think clearly, 
the courage to think justly, and was 
ever guided in determining his atti- 
tude in matters of state, no less 
than those of society, by the golden 
rule, which he often quoted in vindi- 
cation of his policy. 

Our country in common with the 
rest of the world, though in a less 
degree, is agitated by conflicting 
and acrimonious views in the set- 
tlement of the all-important issue 
upon which the peace, prosperity 
and welfare of mankind depends, 
the labor problem. In this crisis 
we turn to Lincoln, not as a states- 
man nor as an economist, but as the 


PREFACE XIX 


great prophet of liberty and apostle 
of justice—one pre-eminently quali- 
fied to adjudge the righteousness of 
a cause—Lincoln whom “God sent 
to ring in the love of truth and 
right!”’ 

In Lincoln’s time, the great labor 
problem—if we regard it for the 
moment in its economic aspect, and 
this aspect was recognized by Lin- 
coln—was that of slavery. With 
his infallible judgment, Lincoln per- 
ceived in slavery the Sword of 
Damocles dangling over our Amer- 
ican Democracy. “This nation can- 
not remain half slave and half free.”’ 
““A House divided against itself can- 
not stand,” were his exact words in 
stigmatizing the anomaly of slavery 
in a democracy. 

The rights of the laborer were in- 
volved as an economic proposition 


Xx PREFACE 


in the great moral issue of slavery. 
Lincoln realized this and said in a 
speech in 1847: 


To secure to each laborer the whole 
product of his labor, or as nearly as pos- 
sible, is a worthy object of any good gov- 
ernment. 


Marx had sounded the note of 
war on capital and private owner- 
ship in his communist manifesto 
of 1848. Cabet, Louis Blanc and 
Proudhon, in France were thunder- 
ing the immortal lie that “Property 
is Robbery.’’ Maurice, Kingsley and 
Carlyle were sounding in more deli- 
cate terms the discontent of British 
labor. | 

The political doctrine of Marx is 
the prototype of Bolshevism. Its 
exponent was Lenin, the Twentieth 
Century Attila, whose avowed pur- 


PREFACE XXI 


pose was to destroy all governments 
the world over by sinister and in- 
sidious propaganda and to erect 
upon their ruin Sovietism, the most 
ruthless in its methods and the 
most blighting in effect of all au- 
tocracies in history. Lincoln would 
be a militant opponent of Bol- 
shevism. 

While in America in Lincoln’s day 
industrialism was not a topic of 
paramount interest, nevertheless 
controversies between capital and 
labor were assuming a disquieting 
proportion. 

Lincoln unquestionably perceived 
the irrepressible conflict. With his 
inclusive mind, he recognized the 
responsibility of capital to labor. 
He saw that they depended on each 
other and that the relation was recip- 
rocal. 


XXil PREFACE 


He realized that the moment 
labor was denied the hope of acqui- 
sition, it was degraded to slavery. 
He realized too that to destroy or do 
away with capital would produce 
universal poverty. While Lincoln 
recognized the temptation of capital 
to impose upon labor, and the frailty 
of human nature in man’s dealing 
with his fellow men, the disposition 
of the demagogue to play against 
capital was to Lincoln anathema. 

While in one speech he would 
sound a note of warning to greedy 
capitalists, in the next he would 
admonish communistic tendencies on 
the part of labor. At New Haven 
in March, 1860, he said:— 


I like the system which lets a man quit 
when he wants to and wish it might prevail 
everywhere. One of the reasons why I am 
opposed to slavery is just here. What is 


Pee 


PREFACE XXill 


the true condition of the labourer? I 
take it that it is best for all to leave each 
man free, to acquire property as far as he 
can. Some will get wealthy. I don’t 
believe in law to prevent a man from get- 
ting rich. It would do more harm than 
good. So while we do not propose any 
war upon capital, we do wish to allow the 
humblest man an equal chance to get rich 
with everybody else. 


{°? 


This is the ‘‘ square deal 

Lincoln would have believed in 
collective bargaining; he would not 
have believed in the closed shop. 
He would have tolerated no class 
legislation in a democracy. He re- 
fused to admit a class distinction 
between capital and labor. He re- 
garded capital and labor as a mixed, 
not a distinct class, and he said, 
“No principle is disturbed by the 
existence of this mixed class.”’ 

Lincoln himself is a living example 
of the priceless opportunity which 


XXIV PREFACE 


democracy affords even to the lowli- 
est. In a speech in 1854 he said, 
“There is no permanent class of 
hired labourers amongst us. Twenty- 
five years ago, I was a hired lab- 
ourer.”’ Lincoln of all the great men 
of his day was the foremost cham- 
pion of freedom of action in our 
political and economic life, so far as 
there was no violation of the rights 
common to the community at large. 
Lincoln would have opposed the 
right on the part of the Police or rail- 
road employees to organize, if such 
Organization implied the right to 
strike when it would menace the 
safety and the welfare of other 
members of the community. 

No one realized better than Lin- 
coln the supreme importance of pre- 
serving intact the smaller as well as 
the larger units, which go to make up 


PREFACE XXV 


the Nation. To insure the safety of 
the Union and its component parts, 
Lincoln would have sacrificed all 
subordinate problems, even those 
affecting the relation of classes in the 
community, for he perceived too 
clearly the utter futility of attempt- 
ing to preserve the rights of the 
individual except through the power 
of a union of all the individuals of 
the nation. 

What we today revere in the mem- 
ory of Lincoln was his great and 
abiding optimism; his generous and 
delicate consideration, for the opin- 
ions of those with whom he differed; 
his inflexibility of purpose; straight- 
forwardness in the doing of things, 
and absolute frankness in public 
and private expression; his entire 
subordination of personal interest 
and motive, and no less the sub- 


XXV1 PREFACE 


ordination of partisanship to the 
welfare of the nation. — 


**A man who never sold the truth to save 
the hour, 
Nor paltered with Eternal God for Power.” 


His untimely death deprived the 
nation of the one man who could 
have spared it the sufferings of the 
period of reconstruction as the after- 
math of the Civil War. 

‘Only by preserving the highest 
reverence for the traditions of Lin- 
coln—The Man of God—and a com- 
mon determination to maintain the 
standards he established, can peace 
be assured at home and abroad, for 


** Never Earth’s philosopher, 
Traced, with his golden pen, 
On the deathless page, truth half so sage, 
As Lincoln wrote down for men!” 


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PREFACE XXVil 


Dr. Hill’s volume has been written 
to express the ideals of Abraham 
Lincoln and he is right in contending 
that whenever Lincoln’s immediate 
task of preserving the peace of 
America had been attained, he would 
have given himself with full devo- 
tion to the ideal of adjusting issues 
between the nations in a World 
Court. Dr. Hill’s analysis makes 
clear that Lincoln would have stood 
for a world to be ruled not by war, 
but by law. | 


PMthig betinant 





FOREWORD 


HE first time I expected to 
a hear Mr. Lincoln speak, he 
did not speak. The gentle- 
man who was assigned to introduce 
him used up the schedule, and the 
train started before he had finished. 
His effort was to interpret Mr. 
Lincoln to the crowd. 

Many thousands of books and 
pamphlets have been written to 
explain Lincoln. Most of them re- 
veal the author but not the subject. 
The original idea of Dr. Hill has 
been to let Mr. Lincoln speak for 
himself, and he has demonstrated 
that Mr. Lincoln discussed every 
great principle of liberty and relig- 


XXix 


XXX FOREWORD 


ion, of popular right and govern- 
ment with a vision, foresight and 
clarity that seem almost inspired. 

Lincoln’s supreme reliance was on 
prayer, and he was one of the very 
few gifted souls in the story of 
mankind, who have their confidence 
in God rewarded by revelations of 
God. 

Dr. Hill asks what Lincoln would 
do if he were here today. He would 
be talking on all questions concern- 
ing the people in the spirit that 
characterized his second Inaugural 
and the Gettysburg speech. Wecan 
not interpret Lincoln in advance, 
- but students of his life, ideas and 
ideals can approach his standpoint. 
The relations of the United States 
with the world, and the Power of 
the Republic to contribute to the 


FOREWORD XXXi 


peace of the world, would secure fair 
appreciation in the mind of Lincoln. 

He would have definite opinions 
on the debts owed to us by Europe. 
The settlement with Great Britain 
would receive his emphatic approval. 
He would wish to be generous and 
considerate with France, and his 
thoughts would not dwell on the 
amount of dollars we could secure, 
but on the larger matter: how jus- 
tice and mercy and harmony of 
nations can best be preserved and 
promoted. On_ prohibition he 
would strive to promote temperance 
and maintain respect and obedience 
for law. Lincoln, while broad- 
minded, was a reverent believer, 
and he would have known how to 
reconcile fundamentalism with mod- 
ernism. 


XXXII FOREWORD 


A World Court with broad powers 
would appeal to him as directly in 
line with his appeals for universal 
peace. In harmony with the les- 
sons of his life, would also be tax 
reduction, transfer of inheritance 
taxes to the States, economy in gov- 
ernment and all efforts for thrift and 
happiness in homes. He would 
probably be the oracle and idol of 
succeeding generations rather than 


popular in this one. 
YW). 


New York, 
Nov. 15, 1925. 


If Lincoln Were Here 





If Lincoln Were Here 


Lincoln has been presented as a 

Man of God, whose highest am- 
bition was to know and do the will 
of God, a man of faith and courage 
testing every question by the infal- 
lible standard of truth, always rely- 
ing upon divine wisdom and justice, 
never doubting the ultimate triumph 
of the right. 

It will be interesting by way of 
Epilogue to consider what Lincoln’s 
views would be on the perplexing 
problems now confronting America. 

At the battle of Marathon, the 
Athenians, outnumbered ten to one 
by the Persians, achieved a memo- 

3 


| an earlier volume Abraham 


4 IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


rable victory and the salvation of 
their country because, as the fable 
runs, the charge of the Greeks was 
led by the spirits of Castor and 
Pollux, their national heroes. 

The annals of every people are 
full of instances showing how the 
inspiration of their heroic dead has 
stirred the hearts of patriots to noble 
and triumphant action. 

It has remained for America to 
produce a figure which embodies 
the typical characteristics of our 
democracy, and makes appeal to the 
sympathies and aspirations of all 
mankind and whose ideals are the 
hope of the world. 

In a very true sense, and it is 
perhaps the most striking fact in 
the entire history of the World War, 
the cause of the Allies found its 
deepest inspiration in the character 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 5 


and achievements of Abraham Lin- 
coln. Whether it was Lloyd George 
in the Parliament of England, or 
Clemenceau in France, or wherever 
it might be, it was the words of 
Lincoln that gave the highest in- 
spiration to the forces fighting the 
battles of civilization, because these 
words were adapted to the issues of 
that great crisis and were instinct 
with the wisdom necessary to the 
solution of the problems it imposed. 
Lincoln’s convincing logic for the 
right, and his faith in God and man 
are still the weapons of humanity 
in the unending conflict against the 
forces of darkness and despair. 
When Lincoln closed his eyes upon 
the scenes of time, Stanton said: 
“Now he belongs to the ages!”’ 
He belongs to the ages because he 
belongs to humanity and he belongs 


6 IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


to humanity because he is the en- 
shrined reality of democracy, the 
impersonation of the principles vital 
to the political and moral stability 
of the world. 


LINCOLN’s GIFT 


Lincoln’s gift, bestowed upon him 
by God and developed by the 
struggles through which he passed, 
was the power to distil the feelings 
and thoughts of the mass of men. 
His heart was a reservoir into which 
trickled the myriad rivulets from 
other hearts. In the nation’s crisis, 
the pent up flood was loosed like a 
river flowing through a parched land 
and joining the eternal sea. What 
the many felt, he felt; what the 
many struggled to express in inar- 
ticulate cries, he distilled into 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 7 


thought and translated into speech, 
illustrating the words of Lowell: 


The thoughts that mold the age begin 
Deep down within the primitive soul 
And from the many souls upward wend 
To one who grasps the whole. 


All truth begins in feeling,—wide 

In the great mass its base is hid, 

And, struggling up, the truth stands 
glorified 

A moveless pyramid. 


As subtle as the multitudinous 
system of roots, anchoring an an- 
cient oak, Lincoln was as simple and 
steadfast as the oak itself. He drew 
strength through the ministry of a 
million rootlets to concentrate and 
dispense it in shade and _ flower 
and fruit. Where he stood in the 
beginning, he stood at the end, con- 
forming the truth with the adaptabil- 
ity of growth. 


8 IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


An oak fastens its roots to living 
rocks, deep buried in the cool earth; 
so Lincoln fastened the roots of his 
being to the eternal rock of truth in 
recesses where storms could not 
dislodge them. Around the Rock 
of Ages entwined the most tenacious 
tendrils of his soul. He likewise 
tested the anchorage of the Consti- 
tution and finding this firm and true, 
fastened to it with the strongest 
fibres of his faith and found in it 
- shelter from cloud and storm. 

“God and Country!’—these were 
the anchors which held him. ‘What 
is good in the sight of God?” “What 
is good before the law?” Lincoln 
asked and solved these questions 
because of his kinship with the 
truth, his faith in the right, his 
repose in the great spiritual reali- 
ties. ‘Render unto God the things 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 9 


that are God’s and unto Cesar the 
things that are Cesar’s” was his 
sublimely simple answer to the 
religio-political riddle of his day. 
That answer borrowed from the 
Nazarene, as was his declaration, 
“A house divided against itself can- 
not stand,” is still the solvent of 
aze-long problems. Lincoln, the 
man of the ages, schooled in the wis- 
dom of experience, clothed with an 
authority born of his high place in 
history, is the source of illumination 
and direction which maintains the 
divinity of truth against the des- 
potism of error. 


PostuumMous INFLUENCE 


And so his sad, shawl clad figure 
is of all time. The memory of 
Washington has been reduced to a 
steel engraving, but Lincoln walks 


io IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


not as a legendary figure clothed in 
the soft light of receding history, 
nor as a dim spectre appearing at 
midday as at midnight, but as a 
cosmic soul emancipated from the 
unholy thrall of time and place, free 
forever from the trammels of birth 
and blood and race and State, step- 
ping silently into the infinitude of 
humanity; a world figure standing 
with mystic mien in the forefront of 
world problems, pointing the way 
toward the sun-path of spiritual 
reality. 

Thus poised, we cannot think of 
him as dead to the issues arising from 
the crisis in which he wrought, or 
to the national destiny involved in 
those issues. 

Standing upon the summit of 
these American centuries, his soul 
calls to the soul of America, and the 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 11 


soul of America is responding as 
in the sixties: “We are coming, 
Father Abraham,” not with bayo- 
nets of steel, but as Kossuth said, 
“with bayonets that think,’ with 
ideals quickened by the spirit of 
Lincoln restless for regnancy in the 
great republic he saved. 

*‘Lincolnize America”? should be 
our national slogan. Applying his 
principles to present day problems 
would lay anew the foundation of 
national power and stability. It 
would make an applied science of 
his maxims. 


SPURIOUS QUOTATIONS 


If we neglect this inheritance, it 
will fall into alien hands. The rep- 
resentatives of agitation and revo- 
lution are already attempting to ap- 
propriate it. There are over two 


12 IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


hundred revolutionary publications 
in this country which are continu- 
ally invoking the words of Lincoln 
in justification of their pernicious 
cause. 

John Nicolay listed over a dozen 
spurious quotations, among them 
one which gained wide vogue, repre- 
senting Lincoln as prophesying the 
ruinous reign of the money power. 
Of this his daughter, Helen Nicolay, 


writes: 


‘This alleged quotation seems to 
have made its first appearance in the 
campaign of 1888 and it has returned 
with planetary regularity ever since. 
Although convinced by internal evi- 
dence of its falsity, my father made 
every effort to trace it to the 
source, but could find no responsible 
nor respectable clue. The truth is 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 13 


that Lincoln was no prophet of a 
distant day. His heart and mind 
were busy with the problems of his 
own time. The legacy he left his 
countrymen was not the warning of 
a seer, but an example and an obli- 
gation to free their own dark shad- 
ows with the sanity and courageous 
independence he showed in looking 
upon those that confronted him.” 


Lincoln himself anticipated this 
distortion of his memory when he 
said upon one occasion, “If I should 
be found dead tomorrow nothing but 
my insignificance would prevent a 
speech being made upon my author- 
ity before the end of next week.” 
That prophecy is fulfilled today in 
the shameful misuses of Lincoln’s 
name, in fragmentary and mutilated 
quotations of his words, in misap- 


14. IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


plication of his principles, in gro- 
tesque imitations of his democracy, 
in demagogic masquerading in his 
livery and shocking caricatures of his 
religious and spiritual character. 

Through the flimsy screen of this 
studied and systematic deception, his 
words shine with beauty undimmed 
and candor undiminished, clothed 
with all their original simplicity, tru- 
isms which have stood the test of 
intervening years and will survive 
the mutations of time because truth 
is timeless. 


A Lincotn RENAISSANCE 


The hour is opportune, therefore, 
for a Lincoln Renaissance, a revival 
of his letters, a return to the prin- 
ciples for which he lived and died: 
“Government of the people, for 
the people, and by the people,” 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 15 


the divine right of liberty in man, 
Constitutional authority, the integ- 
rity of the Union, the majesty of the 
law, “Life, liberty and the pursuit 
of happiness,” religious tolerance, 
racial amity, the application of the 
Golden Rule to industrial prob- 
lems, “A just and lasting peace” 
and the solution of every problem 
“With malice toward none and char- 
ity for all’? and “Firmness in the 
right as God gives us to see the 
right.” There is nothing Utopi- 
an or obsolete in these articles of 
faith. They are instinct with life, 
applicable to conditions today and 
adaptable to all time; not irides- 
cent baubles of political vacuity, 
but a body of faith which is the 
very cornerstone of our national 
life. 


Such a renaissance should be cre- 


16 IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


ative; it should strike to the roots of 
things, deal with essentials and re- 
sult in mental and spiritual illu- 
mination and transformation. Eth- 
ical tinkering, psychological cobbling 
and socialistic white-washing will 
accomplish nothing. Only the spirit 
of Lincoln, his love of the truth, his 
sympathy with humanity, his devo- 
tion to liberty and justice and his 
faith in the Eternal will bring the 
“New birth of freedom” for which 
he pled, reinstate democracy as 
the invincible body-guard of lib- 
erty and preserve representative gov- 
ernment from the wrecking forces 
of ignorance and cupidity. 

In 1802, Wordsworth wrote of 
Milton and expressed the wish for 
the return of the poet statesman to 
the councils of those stirring times. 
The stress of these days is far greater, 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 17 


the problems confronting us more 
complicated and perplexing and the 
issues involved are so vital and im- 
minent that Wordsworth’s longing 
for the return of Milton finds its 
counterpart in the oft-repeated ap- 
peals which are being made from 
pulpit and press and platform to 
Lincoln’s spiritual leadership. 

Indeed Wordsworth’s call to the 
soul of Milton, might well be para- 
phrased into the yearning cry of 
America: 


Lincoln, thou shouldst be living at this 
hour: 

America hath need of thee: she is a fen 

Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen, 

Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and 
bower, 

Have forfeited their ancient English dower 

Of inward happiness. We are selfish men; 

Oh! raise us up, return to us again; 

And give us manners, virtue, freedom, 
power. 


18 IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart: 

Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like 
the sea: 

Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, 

So didst thou travel on life’s common way, 

In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart 

The lowliest duties on herself did lay. 


Lincoln said, “‘Nowhere in the 
world is presented a government of 
so much liberty and _ equality.” 
Would he feel were he here today 
that our ingratitude for the priv- 
ileges of such a precious heritage, 
our indifference to the evils which 
threaten it, our lack of spiritual 
discernment and restraint must even- 
tually arrest the forces of progress? 
What would he say of the sordid 
materialism, utterly antagonistic to 
the ideals for which he lived and 
died? What would be his attitude 
toward Mammonism which is slowly 
enervating the spiritual concepts — 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 19 


which were the creative forces of 
our early history, the loss of which 
will forfeit our spiritual leader- 
ship among the nations of the 
earth? 

On November 10, 1864, speaking 
in response to a serenade at the 
White House, Lincoln said: ‘‘Gold 
is good in its place, but living, 
breathing, patriotic men are better 
than gold.’ These were the words 
of a prophet, a rainbow of inspir- 
ing promise encircling the years, to 
cheer confidence, inspire hope and 
strengthen faith. 

It is not idle conjecture, there- 
fore, with our knowledge of Lin- 
coln’s appraisal of the value of the 
individual man, coupled with his 
views on so many fundamental ques- 
tions relating to government and 
men, to inquire of ourselves what 


20 IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


Lincoln would say of these questions 
were he to reappear in our midst. 


Law ENFORCEMENT 


We are living in a day when law 
enforcement is put to its severest 
test; when a small minority mili- 
tant against the will of the majority, 
licensed by greed, limitless in audac- 
ity, usurping as desire advances, 
seeks to undermine the integrity 
of the Constitution, to trample upon 
a self-determining public respect for 
the law, and to violate with impunity 
social and civic order and stability. 
In the extremity of their despera- 
tion, the assailants of Constitutional 
authority, imitating the example of 
the “reds’’ seek to subsidize the 
influence of Lincoln. 

Lincoln never hesitated to de- 
clare himself upon the question of 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 21 


total abstinence, which he practised, 
and intemperance against which he 
warned. As early as February 22, 
1842, at a celebration of Washing- 
ton’s birthday, then upon the thresh- 
old of his career, Lincoln seized the 
opportunity of declaring his position 
on the ‘Temperance Revolution.”’ 
In the course of this remarkable ad- 
dress he said: 


“Of our political revolution of 776 
we are all justly proud. It has 
given us a degree of political freedom 
far exceeding that of any other na- 
tion of the earth. But with all 
these glorious results, past, present 
and to come, it has its evils too. 
It breathed forth famine, swam in 
blood, and rode in fire; and long, 
long after, the orphan’s cry and the 
widow’s wail continued to break the 


22 IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


sad silence that ensued. ‘These were 
the price, the inevitable price, paid 
for the blessings it bought. 

“Turn now to the temperance 
revolution. In it we shall find a 
stronger bondage broken, a viler 
slavery manumitted, a_ greater 
tyrant deposed—in it more of want 
supplied, more disease healed, more 
sorrow assuaged. By it, no orphans 
starving, no widows weeping. By it, 
none wounded in feeling, none injured 
in interest; even the dram-maker and 
dram-seller will have glided into other 
occupations so gradually as never to 
have felt the change and will stand 
ready to join all others in the uni- 
versal song of gladness. 

“And what a noble ally this, to 
the cause of political freedom; with 
such an aid, its march cannot fail 
to be on and on, till every son of 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 23 


earth shall drink in rich fruition 
the sorrow-quenching draughts of 
perfect liberty! 

“Happy day, when all appetite 
controlled, all passions subdued, all 
matter subjugated, mind—all con- 
quering mind—shall live and move, 
the monarch of the world! Glori- 
ous consummation! Hail fall of 
fury! Reign of reason, all hail! 

“And when the victory shall be 
complete,—when there shall be 
neither a slave nor a drunkard on 
earth,—how proud the title of that 
land, which may truly claim to be 
the birthplace and the cradle of 
both those revolutions that shall 
have ended in that victory! How 
nobly distinguished that people, who 
shall have planted and nurtured to 
maturity both the political and moral 
freedom of their species!”’ 


24 IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


And if such language were not suff- 
cient to restrain forever those who 
would capitalize Lincoln’s influence 
in their unrighteous cause, let us 
quote him again in a letter to 
George E. Pickett, his boyhood 
friend, whose dramatic charge dur- 
ing the Civil War at Gettysburg years 
later, clothed his name with death- 
less fame. He said: “The one vic- 
tory we can ever call complete will 
be that which will proclaim that 
there is not one slave or drunkard on 
the face of God’s green earth. Re- 
cruit for this victory.”’ 

Still later, Mr. Lincoln defended 
fifteen women who were indicted for 
saloon smashing at Clinton, Illi- 
nois. These women adopted the 
hatchet as the symbol! of their zeal 
a half century before Carrie Nation, 
inspired by the tactics of John 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 25 


Brown, wielded the same instrument 
against the saloon. Lincoln did not 
endorse such methods, but so in- 
tense was his abhorrence of the 
dramshop that he volunteered the 
defense of the Clinton crusaders on 
the ground that there are times 
when the law of necessity justifies 
drastic action. In addressing the 
court he said: 


“I will say a few words in behalf 
of the women who are arraigned 
before your honor and the jury. I 
would suggest, first, that there be 
a change in the indictment, so as 
to have it read, ‘The State of Illi- 
nois against Mr. Whiskey’ instead of 
against these defendants. It would 
be more appropriate. Touching this 
question there are three laws: First, 
the law of self-protection; second, 


26 IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


the law of the statute; third, the 
law of God. The law of self-protec- 
tion 1s the law of necessity as shown 
when our fathers threw the tea 
into Boston harbor, and in asserting 
their right to life, liberty and the 
pursuit of happiness. This is the 
defense of these women. The man 
who has persisted in selling whiskey 
has no regard for their well-being or 
for the welfare of their husbands and 
sons. He has had no fear of God 
or regard for man; neither has he 
had any regard for the laws of the 
statute. The course pursued by this 
liquor dealer has been for the demor- 
alization of society. His groggery 
has been a nuisance. These women, 
finding all moral suasion of no avail 
with this fellow, oblivious to all 
tender appeal, alike regardless of 
their prayers and tears, in order to 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 27 ° 


protect their households and _ pro- 
mote the welfare of the community, 
united to suppress the nuisance. 
The good of society demands its 
suppression. They accomplished 
what otherwise could not have been 
done.”’ 


That Lincoln’s convictions on this 
question remained with him to the 
day of his assassination, we have 
ample evidence. In the Christian 
Advocate of February 6, 1919, appear 
the affidavits, documents and data of 
the late Major James B. Merwin 
who died April 5th, 1917, concern- 
ing the attitude toward prohibition 
of Mr. Lincoln from 1855 to 186s. 
According to this and collateral evi- 
dence Lincoln campaigned through- 
out Illinois in 1855 in the interest 
of an Amendment to the State 


28 IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


Constitution which he himself had 
drawn, but which when submitted 
to the voters failed of approval. It 
is significant that as Major Merwin 
was talking with the President a 
few hours before his assassination, 
Mr. Lincoln said to him megen 
to affidavit: | 


“Merwin, we have cleaned up a 
colossal job. We have abolished 
slavery. The next great movement 
will be the overthrow of the legal- 
ized liquor traffic, and you know my 
heart and my hand, my purse and 
my life will be given to that great 
movement. I prophesied twenty- 
five years ago that the day would 
come when there would not be a 
slave or drunkard in the land. I 
have seen the first part come 
true.” | 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 29 
PERSONAL LIBERTY 


If Lincoln were here today what 
would he say to those who are vio- 
lating the Eighteenth Amendment 
to the Constitution in the name of 
what they benightedly character- 
ize as their “personal liberty”? He 
would probably repeat his words in 
an address in Baltimore in 1864: 


“The shepherd drives the wolf 
from the sheep’s throat for which 
the sheep thanks the shepherd as 
his liberator, while the wolf de- 
nounces him for the same act as the 
destroyer of liberty.” 


What would he say to those who 
connive at lawlessness, wink at the 
violation of the Constitution and 
attempt to exalt natural rights above 


30 IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


civil rights? What would he say 
to those timid souls who are ready 
to betray this holy cause into. the 
hands of the enemy with a kiss, who 
declare that because the Volstead 
Act is not an absolute success it 1s 
an absolute failure, and forgetting 
that success in anything is only a 
matter of approximation, are ready 
. to strike their colors and negotiate 
a truce with the enemy? He would 
say to these lawbreakers and their 
sympathizers what he said with all 
his heart to an audience of young 
men at Springfield on January 27, 


1837: 


‘As the patriots of ’76 did to the 
support of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, so to the support of the 
Constitution and the laws, let every 
American pledge his life, his prop- 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE) 31 


erty and his sacred honor; let every 
man remember that to violate the 
law is to trample upon the blood of 
his fathers and to tear the charter 
of his own and his children’s liberty. 
ev reverence for the laws be 
breathed by every American mother 
to the lisping babe that prattles on 
her lap. Let it be taught in schools, 
in seminaries and in colleges. Let 
it be written in primers, spelling 
books and almanacs. Let it be 
preached from the pulpits, pro- 
claimed in legislative halls, and en- 
forced in courts of justice. In short, 
let it become the political religion 
of the nation.” 


“Man is the missionary of order”’ 
said Carlyle in one of his moments 
of vision. Lincoln was inspired by 
this same thought when in contem- 


32 IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


plation of the present and future of 
his country he exclaimed: 


“All the armies of Europe, Asia, 
and Africa combined, with all the 
treasure of the earth (our own ex- 
cepted) in their military chest with 
a Bonaparte for a commander, could 
not by force take a drink from the 
Ohio or make a track on the Blue 
Ridge in a trial of a thousand -years. 
At what point then is the danger to 
be expected? I answer, if it ever 
reaches us, it must spring up among 
us. It cannot come from abroad. 
If destruction be our lot, we must 
ourselves be its author and fin- 
isher. As a nation of freemen, we 
must live through all time or die 
by suicide.” 


Then, calling attention to the 
growing disposition to.disregard the 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 33 


Constitution sealed by the blood of 
its historic framers, he declared that 
our government was built upon the 
principle of “majority rule,’ and 
continuing, “If the time ever comes 
in America when a minority can 
frustrate the will of the majority, 
the result will be mobocracy upon the 
one hand or tyranny on the other.”’ 

No form of government known to 
history is so beset with peril as 
so-called “Free Government.” Lin- 
coln declared, “Freedom does not 
mean the right to do as one pleases.” 
Another way of saying liberty is 
not license. It does not mean the 
right to jeopardize the rights of 
others, to ignore danger signals, 
spurn safety regulations, desecrate 
and destroy property, scatter fire- 
brands, waste natural resources and 
ignore the just claims of others, par- 


34 IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


ticularly the unborn, who are not 
here to protest. No, that is not 
freedom, it is desecration. Yea, 
more, it is Anarchy, that fierce, law- 
less, barbaric individualism that is 
a law unto itself, that scoffs at tradi- 
tions .and customs, that respects 
neither ancestry nor posterity, man 
nor God, the lawless spirit against 
which Lincoln cried and which to- 
day threatens our national existence. 

*Richard Henry Lee of Virginia 
stated an old truism in a striking 
way when he declared, “Eternal vig- 
ilance is the price of liberty: 
Goethe put the same truth in a 
more personal way when he said, 
“No man is worthy of freedom who 


* Without the rules of law and their enforcement, 
mere might would be substituted for absolute right 
and man would be descended to a condition worse 
than wild animals——Experrt H. Gary, Address at 
Waldorf Astoria, January 6, 19265. 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 35 


will not win it day by day”; which 
truism Lincoln only stated in a dif- 
ferent way when he declared, “If 
I can have the generous co-operation 
of the people of this country, the 
flag of our country will be kept 
flaunting gloriously.” 

To Lincoln the flag was both his- 
tory and prophecy. In its field of 
blue he saw our past; in its stars the 
promise of greater glory yet to be. 


PROGRESS 


His was a forward-looking pro- 
gram. He was not a dreamer, nor 
a haloed illusionist. His spirit of 
progress was expressed in steadiness 
rather than haste. He knew the 
difference between progress and mo- 
tion. He was neither a reactionary 
nor a revolutionary. He occupied 
middle ground where progress is 


36 IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


always found. In his address be- 
fore the Historical Society of Con- 
necticut, Charles A. Dana_ said, 
speaking of Lincoln, “He was never 
a step too late nor a step too soon.” 
With William the Conqueror he 
believed that “Events are God 
marching”’’ and it was his highest 
ambition to keep step with events. 
He, therefore, moved a step at a 
time; one foot was always on the 
ground. If he were here today he 
would not be a stand-patter, but a 
sure-stepper. He declared that 
“The dogmas of the past are inad- 
equate to the stormy present,” 
warned against ‘“rashness’”’ and 
urged ‘‘ ceaseless vigilance.” In his 
Cooper Union speech he declared, 


“T do not mean to say we are bound 
to follow implicitly in whatever our 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 37 


fathers did. To do so would be to 
discard all the lights of current ex- 
perience, to reject all progress, all im- 
provement. What I do say is, that 
if we would supplant the opinions and 
policy of our fathers in any case, we 
should do so upon evidence so con- 
clusive and argument so clear, that 
even their authority, fairly considered 
and weighed, cannot stand; and most 
surely not in a case whereof we our- 
selves declare they understood the 
question better than we.” 


Progress with him was only an- 
other word for growth. _ Illustrat- 
ing this thought he said: 


*““A man watches his pear tree day 
after day, impatient for the ripening 
of the fruit. Let him attempt to 
force the process and he will spoil 
both fruit and tree. But let him 


38 IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


patiently wait and the ripe pear at 
last falls into his lap.”’ 


He would not attempt to rebuild the 
world overnight. To those who pro- | 
posed such an experiment, the radicals 
of his day, he said: 


“You are united among yourselves 
in your determination to break with 
the past, but you are utterly divided 
as to where you are going.”’ 


Lincoln had a goal and that was 
always the Constitution. Abhorring 
slavery,. he revered the Constitution 
which sheltered it and would leave it 
under the Constitution, but not con- 
sent to its invasion of virgin soil. 
This purpose he declared in a speech 
in Cincinnati in 1859, when he said: 


“T say that we must not interfere 
with the institution of slavery in the 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE. 39 


States where it exists, because the 
Constitution forbids it and the general 
welfare does not require it. We must 
not withhold an efficient fugitive slave 
law because the Constitution requires 
us, as we understand it, not to with- 
hold such a law, but we must prevent 
the outspreading of the institution 
because neither the Constitution nor 
the general welfare requires us to ex- 
tend it. The people of these United 
States are the rightful masters of both 
congress and courts, not to overthrow 
the Constitution, but to overthrow the 
men who pervert the Constitution.” 


The professional progressives of to- 
day would do well to halt in their heed- 
less haste and study the example of 
Lincoln the ideal progressive of the 
ages. He “proved all things’’ and 
held ‘‘fast to that which is good.”’ 


40 IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 
Economic DETERMINISM 


“Progress and Beyond,” a book 
from the pen of a gifted socialist de- 
scribes the Socialist State as the goal 
of true progressiveness. This pro- 
gram of economic joyriding would 
make no appeal to Lincoln. Its 
basic doctrine of “Economic De- 
terminism,” would be obnoxious to 
his spiritual faith and experience. 
In “‘Sidelights on Contemporary So- 
cialism,’’ this crass doctrine is defined 
as the ‘“‘ Determining force in social 


39 6¢ 


evolution,” “the explanation of all in- 
tellectual and social progress.” En- 
gels, literary executor of Marx, ex- 


plains this principle as follows: 


“From this point of view the final 
causes of all social changes and politi- 
cal revolutions are to be sought not 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 41 


in men’s brains, not in men’s better 
insight into eternity, truth and jus- 
tice, but in changes in the modes of 
production and exchange.” 


Here, in the last analysis, we have 
human hopes, fears, convictions and 
beliefs touching time and eternity, 
laws, morals, religion, marriage, edu- 
cation and civilization explained by 
the economic laws of production, dis- 
tribution and consumption. 

Lincoln represented the very an- 
tithesis of this soulless philosophy. 
It was his sense of personal accounta- 
bility to God, his faith in an over- 
ruling Providence, his familiarity 
with the Scriptures, his habit of 
prayer, his tenderness and pity, love 
of the truth, devotion to righteous- 
ness and faith in his destiny that 
lifted him from obscurity to the pina- 


42 IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


cle of world influence and _ leader- 
ship. 

It was this sense of dependence - 
upon God more than adventitious 
circumstances that made Abraham 
Lincoln what he was. Nor did he 
ever hesitate to acknowledge it. In 
the midst of the bewildering prob- 
lems of the Civil War he said: 


“TIT am driven to my knees over 
and over again because I have no 
where else to go.” 


There is no place for prayer in the 
philosophy of Marx; no room for 
faith or hope of immortality in the 
principle of Economic Determinism 
which surrenders character and civili- 
zation to the blind forces of nature. 
Lincoln’s foundation was the Rock of 
Ages. Upon this he stood and viewed 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 43 


the universe as the handiwork of God, 
saw the hand of Providence working 
behind the shifting scenes of time 
and recognized “The power that 
makes for righteousness’ directing 
the destiny of mankind. It was this 
faith that made him seer and guide, 
prophet and comforter. He reminded 
his dying father: 


“He notes the fall of a spar- 
row and numbers the hairs of our 
heads and will not forget the dying 
man who puts his trust in Him.” 


And it was with this same clinging 
faith in Providence that he wrote the 
memorable letter to Mrs. Bixby > 
whose 


“Five sons had died gloriously on 


the field of battle,” 


44 IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


closing with a benediction as tender 
and sacred as ever penned by mortal 
man: 


“IT pray that our Heavenly Father 
may assuage the anguish of your 
bereavement and leave you only the 
cherished memory of the loved and 
lost and the solemn pride that must 
be yours to have laid so costly a sacri- 
fice upon the altar of freedom.” 


Mankind will search in vain for 
such a pean of faith and hope upon 
the cold lips of materialistic despair. 


INDIVIDUALISM 


There is no phase of the Marxian 
philosophy that appealed to the 
confidence or respect of Abraham 
Lincoln. Against its principle of 
communism he illustrated the wis- 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 45 


dom and possibilities of individual- 
ism by declaring: 


“To the humblest and _ poorest 
among us are held out the highest 
privileges and positions. The pres- 
ent moment finds me in the White 
House, yet there is as good a chance 


Feat ae Ib 


for your children as for my father’s. 


We are hearing a great deal nowa- 
days about the difference between 
human rights and property rights. 
There is no such difference. The one 
necessitates the other. Lincoln was 
the apostle of human rights and as 
such insisted upon the right of the 
individual to acquire and hold prop- 
erty. He said: . 


“That men who are industrious 
and sober and honest in the pursuit 


46 IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


of their own interest should after a 
while accumulate property and after 
that should be allowed to enjoy it in 
peace is right”’ 


and again: 


“The prudent penniless beginner 
in the world labors for wages a while, 
saves his surplus with which to buy 
tools or land for himself, then labors 
on his own account for another while, 
and at length hires another to help 
him. This is the just and generous 
and prosperous system which opens 
the way to all, gives hope to all and 
consequently an improvement of con- 
dition to all.” 


Withhold this hope and life will be- 
come a game of grab and men beasts 
of prey. 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 47 
PRIVATE PROPERTY 


Arthur Young declared a century 
ago: 


“The stimulus of private property 
turns the sands into gold.” 


Slowly through the ages, the insti- 
tution of private property has sup- 
planted communism which spells 
savagery and decadence. Upon the 
institution of private property the 
great modern states have arisen. 
Upon the foundation of private 
property these peoples have built 
wealth and founded democratic and 
representative institutions. They 
have seen order and organization re- 
place anarchy and disorder, they 
have seen freedom replace tyranny; 
they have seen the principle estab- 


48 IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


lished that “A man’s home is his 
castle,’ and cannot be invaded ex- 
cept by due process of law. 

The entire political philosophy of 
Lincoln was built upon this principle. 
In his Cincinnati speech in 1859, he 
said: 


“TI hold that if there is any one 
thing that can be proved to be the 
will of Heaven by external nature 
around us, without reference to Reve- 
lation, it is the proposition that what- 
ever any one man earns with his 
hands and by the sweat of his brow, 
he shall enjoy in peace.” 


GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP 


Socialism denounces this as Capi- 
talism and proposes the experiment 
of Government ownership of land, 
mines, factories, machinery, means 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 49 


of transportation and all public utili- 
ties. Lincoln saw the peril of such 
an innovation and lifted a warning 
voice against its paternalistic princi- 
ple when he said: 


“The legitimate object of govern- 
ment is to do for a community of 
people whatever they need to have 
done, but cannot do at all, or cannot 
do so well in their separate or indi- 
vidual capacities. In all that people 
can individually do for themselves 
the government ought not to inter- 
fore... 


The wisdom of this utterance is 
seen in the debacle of every govern- 
mental venture in the field of pater- 
nalism, notably Government Control 
of the Railways during the World 
War, an experiment from the waste 


so IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


and wreckage of which the railways 
under private management are slowly 
recovering. 

Government ownership may be a 
captivating program to the ignorant 
and indigent, a growing class of citi- 
zens who feel that the government is - 
under obligation to them, but to the 
thrifty and self-reliant, those who 
understand that the government de- 
tives its rights and resources from 
the citizen and that its function is to 
protect individual rights and not 
invade or destroy them, the proposi- 
tion of State ownership and control is 
fraught with the greatest peril. It is 
built upon the principle that the 
citizen is the ward of the State and 
that his property, his children and his 
home belong to the State. This doc- 
trine is clearly enunciated in the 
Communist Manifesto, the Bible of 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 51 


Socialism, in the following unmis- 
takable language: 


Tue FamitLy 


“On what foundation is the present 
family based? On capitalism, pri- 
vate gain. In its completely de- 
veloped form, the family exists only 
among the bourgeoisie. This family 
will vanish as a matter of course when 
its complement vanishes and both 
will vanish with the vanishing of 
capital.” 


Engels, who collaborated with Marx 
in the Communist Manifesto, elabo- 
rates this idea in his Origin of the 
Family where he says: 


“With the transformation of the 
means of production into collective 
property, the monogamous family 


LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 


s2 IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


ceases to be the economic unit of so- 
ciety; the private household changes 
to a social industry, the care and edu- 
cation of children becomes a public 
matter’; 


No less an authority than Mr. H. 
G. Wells, the distinguished Socialist 
philosopher, gave unqualified en- 
dorsement to this program in the 
New York Independent, November 1, 
1906, when he said: 


“Socialism in fact is the State 
family; the old family of the private 
individual must vanish before it just 
as the old water works of private 
enterprise and the old gas company.” 


Against this proposed Nationaliza- 
tion of the home, its scientific mating, 
eugenic breeding and economic degra- 
dation, Lincoln directs every power 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 53 


and passion of his head and heart 
declaring that: 


“The home is the cornerstone of 
our civilization, the source of our 
strength and glory.” 


And recalling the scenes of his child- 
hood in his own cabin home which to 
him was school and sanctuary in one 
he exclaimed: 


‘All that I am or ever hope to be, 
I owe to my angel mother. [ re- 
member her prayers; they have clung 
to me all my life.”’ 


Socialism is not progress. It is as 
Elihu Root once declared: 


““A relapse into barbarism.” 


It is not a reform as many of its 
sincere disciples believe. Robert 


s4 IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


Hunter, the placid philosopher of 
Marxianism, in his Socialist at Work, 
speaking of the Socialists says: 


“No reforms satisfy them. Their 
ideals and aims are beyond any im- 
mediate attainment, and national 
ownership, municipal ownership, 
labor protection, the demolition of 
slums, the abolition of child labor, 
none of these reforms receive from 
them more than cold approval for the 
reason that Socialism is not a reform, 
but a revolution.” 


REVOLUTION 


If Lincoln were here today he 
would oppose this Revolutionary 
program exactly as he opposed revo- 
lution in his own day. 


“‘Let there be peace,” he said, 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 55 


“Revolutionize through the ballot 


pH } 


box. 


In one of his characteristic apho- 
risms he advised, 


“We shall sooner have the fowl by 
hatching the egg than by smashing 
i 

He continually warned against 
violence. To a committee from the 
Working Men’s Association of New 
York he said, 


“The strongest bond of sympathy, 
outside the family relation, should be 
one uniting all working people, nor 
should this lead to a war upon prop- 
erty or the owners of property. Let 
not him who is houseless pull down 
the house of another, but let him 
labor diligently and build one for 
himself, thus by example assuring 


56 IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


himself that his own will be safe from 
violence when built.” 


He insisted that, “‘There is no 
grievance that justifies redress by 
mob law.” He was well aware of 
what he called a “disposition to sub- 
stitute the wild and furious passions 
in lieu of the sober judgments of 
courts and the worse than savage 
mob for the executive ministers of 
justice.” 

His respect for the Court was su- 
preme. If he were here today he 
would denounce the seditious attacks 
upon our judicial system as subver- 
sive of Constitutional government. 


Judicial Decisions,” he declared, 
“have two uses, first, to absolutely 
determine the case decided and sec- 
ondly to indicate to the public how 
similar cases will be decided when 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 57 


they arise. We believe in obedience 
to and respect for the Judicial De- 
partment of Government. Its de- 
cisions on Constitutional questions 
when fully settled should control, 
not only the particular case decided, 
but the general policy of the country, 
subject to be disturbed only by 
amendments of the Constitution as 
provided in that instrument itself. 
More than this would be revolution.” 


There are two outstanding ques- 
tions before the American people to- 
day of importance to mankind in any 
age, upon which we can safely predict 
the attitude of Lincoln were he here. 


Tue Ku Kiux Kian 


The first involves the question of 
religious liberty. From the time of 
the Pilgrim Fathers, liberty of con- 


58 IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


science in religious worship has been 
unrestrained. Today that right is 
challenged by those who in the name 
of “One Hundred Per Cent Ameri- 
canism”’ would destroy this citadel 
of American liberty. This same as- 
sault was directed against freedom of 
conscience by the old “‘ Know-noth- 
ing” party toward which Lincoln 
declared his attitude in 1844, when 
he denounced it as “‘un-Christian,” 
threatening to “overwhelm the coun- 
try and to place proscriptionists in 
power.” So earnest and determined 
was he in his opposition to this un- 
American crusade that he led in call- 
ing a meeting of protest in Spring- 
field in June of that year at which he 
introduced and supported.a resolu- 
tion declaring that, “The guaranty 
of the right of conscience as found in 
the Constitution is most sacred and 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 59 


inviolable and one that belongs no~ 
less to the Catholic than to the 
Protestant.” His resolution further 
declared that, “all attempts to 
abridge or interfere with those rights, 
directly or indirectly, have our de- 
cided disapprobation and shall have 
our most effective opposition.”’ Dur- 
ing that crisis Lincoln wrote a letter 
on the subject to his boyhood friend, 
Joshua F. Speed, in which he said: 


*“*As a nation we began by declar- 
ing that ‘All men are created free and 
equal.” We are now attempting to 
limit that proposition. When it 
comes to making wholesale excep- 
tions, I shall prefer emigrating to 
some country where they make no 
pretense of loving liberty, where des- 
potism can be taken pure and with- 
out the base alloy of hypocrisy.” 


60 IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


It was thus that Lincoln spoke con- 
cerning the menace of “ Know-noth- 
ingism”’ and if he were here today he 
would strike with the same precision 
and denounce with the same patriotic 
zeal the reappearance of the “ Know- 
nothing” party in the Ku Klux Klan 
whose followers hide behind masks 
and costumes, appeal to racial and 
religious prejudice, capitalize bigotry 
and intolerance, resort to boycott 
and intimidation and imbue religion 
with the spirit of hatred and violence. 
By encouraging class consciousness, 
the Ku Klux antagonizes the plainest 
precepts of Holy Writ, desecrates the 
spirit of Christian democracy, vio- 
lates the provisions of the Constitu- - 
tion and imperils the structure of 
popular government. 

To halt this fanatical assault upon 
religious liberty and to restore the 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 61 


spirit of brotherhood to a torn and 
distracted country, we need to in- 
voke the spirit of Lincoln, who is 
still pleading as in 1860,— 


**Let us remember that all Ameri- 
can citizens are brothers in a common 
country and should dwell together in 
the bonds of fraternal feeling.” 


Wor.Lp PEACE 


Finally, if Lincoln were here today 
what would be his attitude on the 
question of World Peace? ‘There are 
many warnings sounded today 
against perils springing from inter- 
national relations and rivalry, from 
national isolation and aloofness and 
lack of international concord and 
co-operation. 

The peril to be feared, as Lincoln 


62 IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


warned, is not from without, but from 
within, notably the professional peace 
propagandist who parades in the 
garb of humanitarianism, boasting of 
universal patriotism, speaking the 
language of universal brotherhood 
and declaiming against preparedness. 
When Nestor counselled the Greek 
generals in their attack upon Troy, he 
said: ‘The secret of victory is in get- 
ting a good ready.” Our national 
atmosphere today is full of pro- 
tests against “getting a good ready”: 
‘Preparedness arouses suspicion.”’ 
“Armaments engender fear and retal- 
iation.” It is argued that National- 
ism is the expression of selfishness and 
isolation; science and invention have 
eliminated space and distance; the 
events following the World War have 
obliterated the boundaries of nations; 
only through the spirit of Interna- 





If LINCOLN WERE HERE 63 


tionalism can the peace objective be 
reached and, therefore, patriotism 
must not be restricted to the land of 
our birth or adoption, but should 
extend to all the nations and races 
of mankind. What would Lincoln’s 
answer be to this? Would the glare 
of Internationalism blind his eyes to 
the glory and supremacy of his own 
flag? Would love for humanity di- 
lute or divert his love for native 
land? Early in his career he de- 
clared himself unqualifiedly as to 
this: 


“Many free countries have lost 
their liberty,’ he said, “and ours 
may lose hers, but if she shall, be it 
my proudest plume not that I was 
the last to desert, but that I never 
deserted her. If I ever feel the soul 
within me elevate and expand to 


64 IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


those dimensions not wholly un- 
worthy of its Almighty Architect, it 
is when I contemplate the cause of 
my country deserted by all the world 
beside and I standing up boldly and 
alone hurling defiance at her vic- 
torious oppressors. And here with- 
out contemplating consequences, be- 
fore High Heaven and in the face of 
the whole world, I swear eternal 
fidelity to the just cause as I deem it, 
of the land of my life, my liberty and 
my love.” 


This solemn oath he actualized in 
the preservation of the Union which 
stands today as the monument of his 
deathless devotion to Nationalism. 
Nationalism, which strengthened 
rather than diminished his love of 
peace. Peace was with Lincoln a 
consuming passion. He said: 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 65 


“The man does not live who is 
more devoted to peace than I am, 
nor who would do more to pre- 
serve it.” 


It was this love of peace which in- 
spired him to say during the dark and 
bloody days of the Rebellion: 


“Fondly do we hope; fervently do 
we pray that this mighty scourge 
of war may soon pass away. Yet if 
God wills that it continue until all 
the wealth piled by the bondsmen’s 
two hundred and fifty years of unre- 
quited toil shall be sunk and until 
every drop of blood drawn by the 
lash shall be paid by another drawn 
with a sword, as was said three 
thousand years ago, so still it must 
be said: ‘The judgments of the Lord 
are true and righteous altogether.’”’ 


66 IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


For Lincoln Nationalism was 
worth fighting for. | 


“We shall nobly save,” he said, 
“or meanly lose this last hope of 
earthy, 


He believed in peace, not at any 
price, but with justice and honor at 
home and abroad. In 1859 at Mil- 
waukee, Wisconsin, in an address be- 
fore the State Agricultural Society, 
he said: 


“To correct the evils great and 
small which spring from want of 
sympathy and from possible enmity 
among strangers as nations or indi- 
viduals is one of the highest functions 
of civilization.”’ 


To Lincoln this “highest function” 
was the duty of all nations and in 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 67 


his Presidential messages to foreign 
countries he lost no opportunity to 
encourage them in this most impor- 
tant service to mankind. But he be- 
lieved that peace works from within 
out rather than from without in. 
And it was in recognition of this 
truth that he closed his second Inaug- 
ural with a Peace Dream which 
though delayed by international pre- 
judice and rivalry is now in the dawn 
of its fruition. 


“With malice toward none, with 
charity for all, with firmness in the 
right as God gives us to see the right, 
let us strive on to finish the work we 
are now in, to bind up the Nation’s 
wounds, to care for him who shall 
have borne the battle and for his 
widow and orphan, To DO ALL WHICH 
MAY ACHIEVE AND CHERISH A JUST 


68 IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


AND LASTING PEACE AMONG OUR- 
SELVES AND WITH ALL NATIONS!” 


That was the dream which Lincoln 
breathed into the soul of the world, 
a dream of peace with justice for all 
mankind. There is no suggestion of 
isolation in this sentiment. Na- 
tionalism for America does not mean 
isolation. It means in a large sense 
of the word, a strong and united 
people for leadership in the advance- 
ment of the world towards the ap- 
proaching fulfillment of Lincoln’s 
dream which hovers like a bow of 
promise over the blood-stained and 
battle-scarred earth. And it is just 
this Nationalism, preserved and ad- 
vanced by Lincoln, which furnishes 
the only gleam of light on the horizon 
of the world today. America must 
stand for leadership in a World 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 69 


Peace, the source from which there 
shall flow out into all parts of the 
world the healing waters of human 
helpfulness. 

Washington advised us against 
“entangling alliances,’ but not 
against enlarging territory and in- 
fluence. When Washington gave us 
that advice, Democracy was still on 
trial. Our population was limited and 
Our resources were unknown. The 
problem of self-government had not 
- been solved. We knew nothing of the 
great empire west of the Alleghenies; 
but we were growing all the while. 
Growth is the sign of life. The 
young republic was expanding in 
equal proportions in all directions. 
We were rapidly becoming a world 
power. 

Lincoln recognized our accounta- 
bility to the world. He saw beyond 


70 IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


the Civil War a new era of democ- 
racy, the soul of which must be pro- 
jected everywhere and he could not 
tolerate the thought of isolation. 
The old adage, “Every man for him- 
self’? must be changed into, “Each 
for all and all for each.” Interna- 
tional co-operation must hasten the 
new era of peace and brotherhood. 
Justinian declared that “‘ Justice is in 
granting to every man his dues.” 
Lincoln’s dream of peace was coupled 
with justice,—‘A just and lasting 
peace.” A phrase prophetic of the 
Limited Disarmament Conference, 
now history and a coming tribunal 
of International Justice. It is in- 
teresting in this connection to note 
that one of the leading delegates in 
the Parliament of Peace at The 
Hague stated before that body that 
it was the action of Mr. Lincoln in 


Ik LINCOLN WERE HERE 71 


drawing up a code of rules of war 
for the Union armies which prompted 
Alexander II., then the czar of 
Russia, to propose the first Hague 
Conference, which was the fore- 
runner of all the achievements of that 
Tribunal. Thus Lincoln stands in 
the dawn of an era of constructive 
peace. The world today is waiting 
for the enthronement of his concep- 
tion of justice as the base and bond 
of this new era. Toward his ideal the 
nations are moving. The Powers 
are already contemplating a confer- 
ence for this higher, nobler end. Lin- 
coln will be present in spirit. It 
is not an idle prophecy that some 
delegate tracing the origin and de- 
velopment of the peace movement, 
dwelling upon its expansion from the 
abstract to the concrete will cite the 
foretokening words of Lincoln’s Sec- 


72 IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


ond Inaugural as the initial impulse 
of the final stage of the dream of the 
ages, an International Tribunal for 
the adjudication of world contro- 
versies, the ground and guarantee 
of “‘A just and lasting peace.” Prior 
to Lincoln’s second Inaugural, inter- 
national differences were occasion- 
ally arbitrated. Arbitration proceeds 
by negotiation and compromise. 
When Lincoln plead for peace with 
justice he was taking a long step in 
advance of arbitration. Justice sug- 
gests law and law stands for adjudi- 
cation. Peace with justice can only 
be secured by the application of the 
principles of law. This is the goal 
of Internationalism today. The 
establishment of a World Tribunal 
for the adjudication of world con- 
troversies. 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 73 
THe Wortp Court 


Lincoln’s conception of a World 
Court would be far removed from a 
super-government. He would recog- 
nize no International flag. He would 
not consent to the reduction of 
our government from the lantern- 
bearer of world hope to an interna- 
tional mendicant. His was the 
thought of National solidarity, that 
in the preservation of our integrity, 
we might expand and enlarge in peace 
and good will until our influence for 
amity and co-operation might en- 
circle the world, a vision of col- 
lectivism at home, peace “‘among 
ourselves,’ and co-operation abroad 
‘with all nations.” Not a program 
of surrendered rights and policies, the 
transfer of the right to declare war 
from Congress to the League of Na- 


74 IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


tions, the submission of the Monroe 
Doctrine, our immigration policy, or 
any other question vital to our rights 
and life to an alien court. No. But 
rather such a peace at home as shall 
make us strong abroad. A _ peace 
characterized with such strength to- 
wards the strong and gentleness 
toward the weak that the world will 
recognize the source of our leadership 
in our devotion to Justice, love of 
liberty and consecration to humanity. 

These are the outstanding prob- 
lems of the day, questions so wrought 
into the texture of civilization that 
there are those who look with appre- 
hension upon our future. They point 
to McCauley’s prophecy of our na- 
tional downfall and see in the rapidly 
growing spirit of selfishness and law- 
lessness in our midst, the auguries of 
its tragic fulfillment. 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 7; 
REMEDIES 


Various remedies are suggested. A 
recent editorial in the Century Mag- 
azine pleads for “A New Encyclo- 
pedist,”’ an intuitive mind to discover 
and mass all the necessary raw ma- 
terials for a thorough-going renais- 
sance of civilization, who would go 
with conscientious care through the 
findings of modern biology, psy- 
chology, anthropology, experimental 
ethics, genetics, economics, sociology, 
chemistry, physics, reducing to un- 
derstandable terms the net social 
and spiritual contribution each of 
these adventures of the modern mind 
has made to the future of civiliza- 
tion, and “arrive at a fairly accur- 
ate sense of the dynamic ideas of the 
various sciences by applying them 
to the needs of the world.” 


76 JF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


History is replete with illustrations 
of the futility of such petty skirm- 
ishes in the titanic struggles of civili- 
zation. 

The World War was the explosion 
of such an experiment. 

Mazzini declared: 


“The true instrument of the pro- 
gress of a people is to be sought in 
the moral factor.” 


This was the galvanic spark in the 
philosophy of Lincoln. He stripped 
every question of its political and 
economic aspects, laying bare its 
moral character. 


“If slavery is right,” he declared 
at Cooper Union, “‘all words, acts, 
laws and constitutions against it are 
themselves wrong. If it is wrong, 
we dare not insist upon its extension. 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 77 


Their thinking it right and our think- 
ing it wrong is the precise fact upon 
which depends the whole contro- 
versy.”’ 


It is this acid test that is sorely 
needed today in the solution of the 
crucial questions confronting us. It 
was Lincoln’s infallible standard of 
appraisal. He spurned compromise 
where a vital principle was involved. 
Expediency was obnoxious to his 
moral sense. In politics, the desider- 
atum was not votes, but principle. 
His friends protested against the 
“House divided against itself”’ 
speech, declaring that it would defeat 
him. He answered that he would 
sooner, 


““Go down to defeat with that prin-- 
ciple than to win without it.”’ 


78 IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


If he were here today he would re- 
store moral vision to political leader- 
ship. He would enthrone princi- 
ple above personality, patriotism 
above partisanship and statesman- 
ship above demagogism. He would 
lead America back to the heights of 
spiritual illumination. He would not 
conspire for place. He would not 
capitalize silence in the presence of 
crying wrongs. He would speak out 
against national vice and venality, 
expose the strongholds of social and 
political corruption, rebuke the os- 
tentations of wealth and the postur- 
ings of poverty, the autocracy of 
Capital and the despotism of Labor. 
He would exalt the Golden Rule 
above the rule of gold; insist upon 
law observance and obedience, the 
integrity of the Constitution and the 
spiritual foundation of civilization. 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 79 


He would not temporize with existing 
evils. He would apply his “House 
divided against itself’’ principle to 
present-day problems. In 1859, he 
_ declared, “This nation cannot long 
endure half slave and half free.’ To- 
day he would say: 


“This nation cannot long endure 
half law and half anarchy; half Bol- 
shevist and half American; half Con- 
stitution and half nullification; half 
Ku Klux and half religious tolerance; 
half pagan and half Christian.” 


He would say as he did when a 
member of the Illinois legislature: 


“You may burn my body to ashes 
and scatter them to the winds of 
Heaven. You may drop my soul 
down to the regions of darkness and 


80 IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


despair to be tormented forever, but 
you will never get me to support a 
measure which I believe to be wrong, 
although by doing so I may accom- 
plish that which I believe to be 
right.” 


THe PARTING OF THE Ways 


We are at the cross-roads of des- 
tiny. In every such crisis a beacon 
has been lighted for our guidance by 
the hand of Providence. 

During the Civil War an extremity 
was reached when the cause of free- 
dom drifted between hope and des- 
pair and the Union trembled in the 
doubtful scale. The National debt 
had grown until on February 2, 
1863, the public credit was on the 
verge of ruin. Fredericksburg with 
its crushing defeat added terror to 
the situation. Beaten under Burn- 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 81 


side, decimated and penniless, the 
Army of the Potomac had lost its 
morale and six-hundred desertions 
were reported daily. ‘Peace at any 


b 


price,” was the clamor of Northern | 
editors and Greeley added his plaint 


in a letter to Lincoln saying: 


“I venture to remind you that the 
bleeding, bankrupt, almost dying 
country longs for peace.” 


What was the answer of the sleep- 
less sentinel in the White House? 
It was not a proposed cessation of 
hostilities subject to the negotiation 
of peace at the cost of liberty and 
Union. It was something more di- 
rect, revealing and remedial. It was 
an appeal to the God of nations ex- 
pressed in a proclamation setting 
aside “A day of national prayer and 
humiliation”’ declaring: 


82 IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


“Tt is the duty of Nations as well 
as of men to own their dependence 
upon the overruling power of God, 
to confess their sins and transgres- 
sions in humble sorrow, yet with as- 
sured hope that genuine repentance 
will lead to mercy and pardon, and 
to recognize the sublime truth an- 
nounced in the Holy Scriptures, and 
proven by all history, that ‘those 
Nations only are blessed whose God 


is the Lord.’ 


“We have been the recipients of | 


the choicest bounties of Heaven. 
We have been preserved, these many 
years, in peace and prosperity. We 
have grown in numbers, wealth and 
power as no other nation has ever 
grown; but we have forgotten God. 
We have forgotten the gracious hand 
which preserved us in peace, and 
multiplied and enriched and strength- 


~~ 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 83 


ened us; and we have vainly imagined 
in the deceitfulness of our hearts, 
that all these blessings were pro- 
duced by some superior wisdom and 
virture of our own. Intoxicated 
with unbroken success, we have be 
come too self-sufficient to feel the 
necessity of redeeming and preserv- 
ing grace, too proud to pray to God 
that made us; 

“It behooves. us then to humble 
ourselves before the offended Power, 
to confess our national sins, and to 
pray for clemency and _forgive- 
ness.” 


In response to that summons, a 
contrite and repentant nation set it- 
self right before God. Gettysburg, 
Emancipation and Appomattox fol- 
lowed in sequential order. 

Now we confront another crisis. 


84 IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 


‘Problems today are as grave and 
perplexing,” declared, the lamented 
Harding shortly before his death, 
“fas the problems to which Lincoln 
brought as clear a mind and pure a 
soul as modern times have known.”’ 


The source of strength and guid- 
ance in hours of trial is the decisive 
criterion of the character of men and 
nations. 

Having reached the forks of the 
road, which way shall America go? 
Standing between chaos and civili- 
zation, what is to be the next step? 
Destiny is hidden here. There is 
no half-way ground. We must 
choose between the economic and 
the spiritual; the Communist Mani- 
festo and the Sermon on the Mount; 
the traditions of the fathers and 
founders of the Republic and the 


IF LINCOLN WERE HERE 85 


revolutionary doctrines of Trotsky 
and Lenine, the lowlands of mate- 
rialism and the religious highlands 
where Lincoln lived and died that 
we might live, and where he is plead- 
ing as loudly today as in the Gettys- 
burg speech that,— 

“Government of the people, for 
the people and by the people may 
not perish from the earth.” 














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